… Life with a spinal cord injury and the way I WILL BE DRIVING WITH MY BRAND NEW DRIVERS LICENSE !!!  Yep, that’s right folks by some miracle (or DMV mistake), I was issued a Virginia state drivers license. The DMV has a bad reputation but they put me through lickity split without even requiring a written or road test, even though my license expired some time ago. SHHHHHH.  The next step in getting back behind the wheel is figuring out what type of hand controls and vehicle I need.  Then, the goal is to become proficient with said controls and purchase said vehicle.  Needless to say, now that Mandy has gone back to work fulltime, having my own vehicle will provide me with a level of independence that I haven’t had since August 20, 2005.  So we are all looking forward to that!

Speaking of Mandy’s return to work, it has been as difficult as one could expect given the lengthy recovery from her foot operation and absence from the field of social work over the last year and half while we were in California.  She is adjusting, slowly but steadily and I am sure she will hit her stride just in time for her to go back under the knife for her second foot surgery.  Yep, you read correctly, there is a complication with the screw they used to repair her bone- it is TOO BIG and is poking through the bottom of her bone into the surrounding soft tissue.   We haven’t scheduled the procedure because she does not have any sick leave built up but we hope the issue will be taken care by the end of the summer.  She is able to walk now thankfully, but not without pain which has prevented her from resuming her workout routine which she got so much joy from when we were in California. 
 
My workout routine however if finally beginning to take shape.  I located a physical trainer who will be working with me 2/week out of our home.  In addition to that, I returned to traditional physical therapy this past Tuesday via the local paratransit service (another motivation for getting back behind the wheel) and plan to attend 2/week. Sadly, in the time it has taken me to obtain physical therapy and training, my muscles have atrophied significantly.  I have however, been doing some walking around the house and have even mastered the stairs .  My therapist and trainer have not worked with spinal cord injuries before but both seem excited and ready to learn about the unique complications a SCI presents.

At the risk of jinxing it, we are happy to report that we have an interested buyer for our home in Sparta.  We do not yet have a written contract but we are hopefully to obtain one over the next few days.  The downside is that buyer will be renting the home for 6-8 months prior to closing but the upside is their offer is a solid one and they seem as in love with the house as we were when we first saw it.  We’ve learned in that past that offers/contracts have a way of falling through but we are hopeful that after 18 months we can finally say goodbye to 1 Alpine Terrace.

Hello Everyone,
I have several newsworthy items to report. Lets begin with Mandy this time. As if there was ever any doubt, she rocked her interview and was promptly offer a position with the Fairfax County government as a foster care/adoption worker. While she is excited about the position and looking forward to working in her field again, for now it’s hard for her to be really excited about anything. Foot surgery is for the birds! She’s in pretty bad pain and has been sleeping on the couch for the last week because I normally kick her 30-40 times in a night with my spasms. We are a sight! She’s using crutches, I’m in a walker or chair. My handi-honey is getting a taste of disabled life and it’s no fun. Please post some words of encouragement for her on the message board. I love you baby.

I finally uploaded some photos from the Cross Country trip back east. With almost 500 images, it was really tough to cherry pick, but we managed to get it down to 126. You can check it out in the Photos section. I’ll be including some of the unposted 300+ photos in the upcoming video (god knows when this will get done), but you can get a good idea about what went on with the photo album. Not long into the trip we named the RV the "Birthing Wookie", because of the noises it made when you turned on the water. Use your imagination. The trip itself was amazing. We saw San Francisco, Napa Valley, Redwood National Forest, Crater Lake, Shoshone Falls, Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, gambled in Deadwood, stopped in Jackson Hole, ate a 13 pound pizza in St. Louis and sooo much more. The most painful part for me was calculating the 8.5 mpg carbon footprint we left as we drove. With a total trip mileage of over 4300, well, let’s just say I’ll be putting off getting a car as long as I can.

We are settling into Virginia life and have spent some time with a few friends we haven’t seen in a while. The most frustrating part of the transition is locating qualified doctors and medical suppliers within a reasonable driving distance. My mother in law, Eileen has helped out immensely by driving us to the several appointments we have had thus far and has signed on for a ton more in the next few weeks. Thank You!!! I did start the process of obtaining my drivers license, however the first appointment for driving school is not available until August and I cannot get an appointment until I obtain a doctor’s note (wish I would have know that last week when I was at the doctors!). Needless to say, it looks like I won’t be driving until well into the winter months which is a tad frustrating considering Mandy will not be able to drive me anywhere once she starts work.

In other news, the house has still not sold. We have begun the process of removing the oil tank, which will hopefully make it more appealing to buyers. We would have done this sooner, but our insurance company would not allow us to remove the tank prior to the one year ‘waiting period’. It looks like we will have to dump more money into it to get it sold (destroy the deck which was stupidly built (not by us) on top of the tank, remove the tank, replace the deck). What a nightmare! It is still empty, not staged for sale, God knows what the yard looks like, or the driveway. And now with Mandy going back to work full time on the 14th, things feel really chaotic. If I can work it out, I might hire an aide and go live up there by myself for a while to help sell it. No one does what they say they are going to do unless you are sitting on top of them!

Exercise has kind of taken a back seat to solving the house/doctor problems which is tough, but I do have a trainer coming next week for a trial workout (thanks to Ann McGavin for making the connection). Hopefully I can get back into a routine, my sanity depends on it. That’s all for now, thanks for checking in.

Rob